On the way to work...

I took most of these photos on Tuesday morning - it was a clear bright morning, and I needed to lodge a cheque and buy some stamps, so I got the bus in to town and walked back out.
The colours in the Burton Building were looking extra-vibrant in the sunshine.

And another of the City of Physics utility boxes - this one is on the corner at Christchurch.

There's a very small stretch of old thick wall just at Cornmarket. It's not on the side of the road that I normally walk on, but a couple of times I have crossed the road to look at it and see if there was any information about it. There never was, but the new Tourist Trail signs (I used one for me "new" in Clare's photo prompts) now give more information.

You can see the reflection of St. Audeon's Church in the top photo. It's where my sister was married - she lived nearby, and walked to the church and then to the reception in the old Tailor's Hall (guild hall) just across the road.

Friday morning was my day off, and when I went to shut the gate after C had left, I was greeted by this sight ~

I'm glad that it didn't lie. By the time I left to take bottles for recycling and pick up something from the library, I did have to scrape the car but the roads were clear. I liked the way our  sitting-room light reflected in the window, almost like a sun.

Switzerland part 3

More photos from Auvernier...

Take something, leave something

This goes with the photo of the house underneath: Unique in the Neuchâtel vineyards, the "Square House" stands out because of it's silhouette. It was built in 1805 by Henri and Frederic Brandt... The roof reminds me of a Chinese building near Parc Monceau in Paris... I'll add a photo at the end of this post, since I haven't previously uploaded one.

And the Pagoda Paris:  we regularly go to the Monceau area, so I was surprised that we had never seen it before out last trip to Paris.

Switzerland part 2

We walked along Lake Neuchatel from the town to the next small town - about a 5 km walk. It was quite windy but not too cold, and we enjoyed out. Auvernier was very picturesque - and very wine-oreiented. We passed several playgrounds and barbecue areas, I'm sure in summer it must be much busier than on a cold January day.

February Favourites...

Not many favourite cards for February - two weeks sick and a week still recovering meant I didn't spend much time upstairs...but there are a few, even if most of them were made over two or three days. I think I'll use the anteater one as a birthday card for my nephew, since I don't need another get well card.

This month's blog header is a photo from last March of a cormorant in breeding plumage. I just saw one this week, and am thinking I need to walk down to Heuston Station one (drier than today) morning and see can I get some more photos.

Switzerland part 1

Finally, sneaking in just before February ends, I edited some of my Swiss photos while on the phone to my dad. A 54 minute conversation left me with enough for several blog posts this week!

We landed in Mulhouse which is actually in Northern France, but one of the airport exits takes you into German-speaking Switzerland; we got a bus into Basel where we took a train to Neuchatel - this is the front of the train station, and the little bread man was in the cafe where we bought sandwiches. Since we landed in Geneva last time, which is French-speaking, I found it much more challenging to try to get by with my very minimal German...

Murals in the station 

Old signal box, I guess, in one of the branch-line stations we stopped in.

The rest of the photos were all taken along the lake shore on Saturday, we walked to to the next town.

There were plenty of tufted ducks, mallards and mergansers, but also a few of these goosander.

 

On the way to work...

I've been sick for most of the last two weeks - no fun. From Wednesday this week I went back to work. C has been sick too, and has been getting the bus this week instead of his motorbike or cycling, just to make things easier on himself. So when he forgot his lunch on Friday, I took pity on him and got the bus all the way over to meet him at his work, and then walked back across town. Since I had some bread crusts in my backpack expecting to be feeding the gulls on the river, I took a small detour through the park and fed the ducks there instead - lots of moorhens, and some tufted ducks too as well as mallards. These gulls are starting to come into their adult plumage.

And the other two photos were just snaps along the way - the WiFi mosaic is on Grafton Street, and the City of Physics (there are quite a few of them around) is on Parliament Street.

Soon I hope to get time and energy to edit and upload some of my photos from Switzerland...

January Favourites

January was not a productive month on the card front, but here are my favourites...

I don't really go for girls with no faces, but I did like how this turned out...

This month's blog header is a photo of a male chaffinch taken in the back garden last February.